Paris 2024: Olympian Peter Bol further vindicated, WADA reacts to positive drug test saga
Peter Bol went through hell last year grappling with a positive drug test before proving his innocence. The World-Anti Doping Agency has made a key change in the aftermath of the saga, reports JULIAN LINDEN.
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Australia’s inspirational middle distance runner Peter Bol has had another major win with the World-Anti Doping Agency (WADA) agreeing that international drug testers should obtain a ‘second opinion’ before reporting positive tests for the banned blood booster EPO.
Although WADA stopped short of saying it had erred in its handling of Bol’s case, it has now issued fresh instructions to its affiliated anti-doping agencies on how to handle and report tests for EPO and EPO Receptor Agonists (ERAs).
The changes include recommendations on how to review and interpret results as well as a requirement to seek additional assessment on any adverse or atypical findings.
“This reflects efforts towards further improvement and harmonisation of laboratory-related anti-doping rules and activities,” WADA told this masthead.
Under intense pressure to review its testing procedures after serious questions were raised about their reliability, WADA last year ordered an in-depth investigation into EPO testing that took eight months to complete.
The results have now been revealed in a 38-page “technical document’ that has been sent to drug testers after being approved by WADA’s executive committee.
The new procedures will come into effect from June 15 - six weeks before the start of the Paris Olympics.
In its review, WADA reiterated that its existing methods to detect EPO “remained valid” but revealed changes to ‘strengthen’ the processing and reporting of cases.
While WADA described the changes as “minor adjustments”, for any athlete wrongly accused of doping, they are life changing.
While unscrupulous athletes inject extra EPO into their bloodstream to illegally boost their performance in endurance events – which is strictly prohibited - innocent athletes have also been caught out because erythropoietin is a naturally occurring hormone produced by the kidneys.
One of Australia’s most admired middle-distance champions, Bol’s world was tipped upside down in early 2023 when he was informed he had returned a positive test for EPO while he was staying with his family in Perth the previous October.
Bol has always maintained his innocence but was given a provisional suspension while his case was ongoing because he had returned a single test that was deemed positive.
But dozens of his other samples came back negative or inconclusive and it later transpired that his positive sample was false.
He was completely exonerated of any wrongdoing and allowed to resume competing but the case - and the leaking of his identity - raised serious concerns about the EPO testing procedures, with World Athletics’ boss Sebastian Coe calling for an investigation to ensure the credibility of every test designed to catch the real cheats.
In a summary of its new procedures, WADA did provide some clarity on how it would deal with inconclusive tests, stating:
“When a second, complementary confirmation Analytical Method is applied to obtain additional scientific evidence and it does not confirm the presence of ERA(s) in the sample, the result shall be reported as an Atypical Finding (ATF).
“Further, a result shall be interpreted as a Negative Finding when no electrophoretic band is detected in the sample’s gel lane.
WADA also outlined the procedural requirements for reporting ERA results, “including the obtaining of second opinions before reporting an AAF or an ATF.”
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